According to the letter, Broken Age got pretty large; so large in fact that internal predictions at Double Fine put the game’s release in July of 2014 with a significant amount of content being cut. Instead of releasing a smaller game at a later date than promised, Double Fine will be selling the first half of Broken Age through Steam Early Access in January of 2014 to fund the rest of the game.

Backers will still get their full game as promised; what the Steam Early Access will do is open the game up to people who didn’t back the game on Kickstarter and will hopefully create the revenue Double Fine needs to finish it off. Double Fine thought it would be improper to get money from an actual publisher or go back to Kickstarter.

So what do you guys think? If you’re a backer, what’s your take on this?

8 thoughts on “Broken Age Gets Broken in Half to Ensure Completion”

Some backers might be pissed but they’ll have to be patient I guess (I’m not one of them since Kickstarter doesn’t take paypal apparently?). I’d pick it up at a reasonable cost in January, even though Stacking turned out to be pretty meh.

Count me among the non-pissed backers. Sure, I’m a tad annoyed that Shafer & Co couldn’t distill their ideas down to an a game that would fit the development time frame. But this doesn’t come as much of a surprise, and frankly my biggest worry has been that they would over-run the budget and have to release an incomplete game. If this move gets Tim what he needs to complete the Broken Age he’s envisioned, I’m all for it.

I’m not a backer and I’ve never been enamored with Double Fine but from an outside perspective this just seems to be unreasonable money management. I’m curious what would have happened if they had only got the 400k they asked for and what does this mean for the other games that they’ve raised money for? Will those budgets now be pillaged to help this game out? I sincerely hope this isn’t the start of a money spiral where they keep ‘designing too much game’.

It’s admirable that they’ve done that and I actually like the idea of splitting the game too. The main worry is how they are handling the money they have been given. Perhaps it’s me being cynical but creators will keep creating because that’s what they enjoy doing, they also get attached to what they create, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it has a bit of regulation.

For my two cents I just think the timing of this is conspicuous, considering that Massive Chalice (which seems like an excellent idea, don’t get me wrong) just got funded.

I didn’t back either of these games, but I considered backing Massive Chalice. I’m glad that Double Fine is taking the steps they need to finish the game properly, but this move pretty much guarantees I won’t be backing them in the future.